Dumb-a%$ Award

[webbcraft2150]

Early seventies, Bonanza minibike w/Hodaka 100 engine. Minibike had these footpegs with real sharp, teeth like ridges on them. I had on a pair of "waffle stompers". Practiced a couple of small wheelies (real easy to do with that rig). Thought I would ride a big wheelie across a four lane street back to the house and impress the boys. Hit second gear and nailed it, front wheel went skyward, between the teeth on the footpegs and the pattern on my boots, my feet stuck to the pegs as the bike looped over. Crashed in the street, bike fell on its side taching about 6k, still in gear. Everytime the back wheel hit the street,it would spin me around with it. Dam thing finally died, cars stopped in both directions watching this death defying act. I calmly picked it up, wheeled it into the garage amoungst great laughter. Went into the house to access the human damage, lotsa road rash. As I was checking it out in the bathroom mirror, girlfriend that a good doucheing of hydrogen peroxide would be the cure, I think she is still deaf.

[Parr8hed]

gotta love that kill switch. Was sitting on the Ohio in my brand new sea ray and went to start her up and nothing happened. After 2 hours of going over every fuse and electrical connection on the boat (in the MIDDLE of the river) my wife points to the kill switch on the throttle and simply asked "does that thing have to be on "RUN""?

[jimboreeno]

OK...my turn,
This was YEARS ago. I had a Honda CT70 trail bike. I used to ride the woods trails and basically go anywhere with that thing. I would never hesitate to jump stuff or whatever.
One day as I was riding a trail that I hadn't ridden in awhile I saw that a clearing had been made and there was a big pile of dirt. Ever the adventurer, I took off straight for it to get a great jump. I did.
They had just dug the basement for the new house they were building. I jumped and looked down into an 8 foot hole. My bike landed in the mud and sank past the axles and pegs. (The soft mud is the only reason I was able to have kids after I grew up!)
It took me half an hour to pull it out of the mud and that hole. Started right up though! Thank goodness they had not set rebar or poured concrete!

[Bauer]

Must have been my day as well.

New pipes from MikesXS.com arrived on thursday back in my hometown, headed up there to pick them up over the weekend. Finally today I got a chance to put them on. Bolted them up, hangers did not work so I ziptied them to the chassis until I can get back home this weekend to fab up some new hangers. Took off to try em out and go run some errands. Got downtown about 2 miles from my apt. and tools and the right side pipe decides its time to come off the collector pipe where I had it clamped, one of the worst sounds in the world has to be chrome (metal) on concrete. Thanks to my ziptie, I never lost the pipe, and because of the location of the tie, it was front end heavy, so the only damage I incured was on the clamp end of the pipe that slides in under the heat shield. LUCKY, so the only thing damaged was my ego as I was sittin of the street trying to clamp it back down with the tool kit on the bike.
First thing I did when I got back was to take the rubber mallet to them and make sure they were NOT coming off again.

[Trikerneil]

I've done the drain plug and too long spark plug thing.

I pulled into a petrol station one very wet day on a badly misfiring Honda 500-4. I didn't kill the engine in case it wouldn't restart. I went into the shop and bought a can of WD40. I then sprayed the running engine with WD40 and set fire to the bike!! Luckily it went out quite quickly.

I did four crossings on the local chain ferry. I'd pulled onto the ferry OK but the bike (Honda 500-4) just wouldn't start when we reached the other side. So back and forth I went across Poole Harbour entrance. After an hour, checking absolutely everything and the fourth journey across I pushed the Honda up the steep and slippery ramp to solid ground intending to ring for recovery. Having got to the top of the ramp I sat on the bike, lit a cigarette and realised the kill switch was in the off position - Oh how we laughed - NOT!!

I blew the main fuse on my BSA 441 Shooting Star. Not having a spare fuse and knowing a "quick" repair I wrapped the fuse in silver foil and promptly set fire to the wiring.
Oops! another phone call to the recovery people. And I had to rewire the whole bike.

I once had the tank off my XS850 to balance the carbs but the bl**dy thing wouldn't start after I'd put it all back together.
I took out the two outer plugs and squirted some zippo lighter fluid down the holes, put the plugs back in and fired the bike up. It went from zero to redline instantly. I'd caught the throttle cabe while putting the tank back on and the carbs were wide open. The zippo fluid kicked the engine over enough for it to catch and off it went howling like a mad thing until I hit the kill switch.

I saw a guy (not me honest) make a bracket from the top rear suspension bolt to the rear axle nut to support a new set of saddlebags. Then wonder why the bike wouldn't handle any sense.

[strom]

Originally posted by Parr8hed
gotta love that kill switch. Was sitting on the Ohio in my brand new sea ray and went to start her up and nothing happened. After 2 hours of going over every fuse and electrical connection on the boat (in the MIDDLE of the river) my wife points to the kill switch on the throttle and simply asked "does that thing have to be on "RUN""?

Happened to me on the guzzi.... just got it, had it for bout 2 days... had the plugs out and everything... the guzzi would crank but not start with the killswitch to off. Felt pretty stupid after that...
Well... there was the time I was prying something loose with a screwdriver that broke and the broken tip hit and stuck in my forehead. Laughed my ass off when I saw the look on a friends face... well... half an inch and it would land in the eye, but hey... thats life.
When I bought my first bike (MZ 250 ETZ) it was in pieces... so the guy that was putting it together said the decompression cable is missing and told me to buy a new one. Well... looked everywhere for it, till I found out the MZ had no such thing... well, I was wondering why my friends were ROTFL.
Another thing not to be repeated is having a sidestand switch short out in the middle of an intersection making the bike die as soon as I hit the 1st gear, right next to a police station with no licence & registration at all....
Best for almost last.... I just rebuilt (with a lot of help from a friend whos bike I bought) my old zx600r. Did the final assembly myself, and went for a test ride.... I figured I would visit a friend and show how fast the thing went together. So I was putting along the highway at bout 70 mph when I catch up to two cars driving parallel taking both lanes. Now they went 60, I wanted to go 70 and I waited a bit what would happen... The guy on the fast lane didnt want to pull away from his buddy so hey... I got a bike... went between both cars and rode on at 70. Now the guy on the fast lane catches up... OK this is getting weird.... now why is there a big POLICE sign on the hood of that car. Why are his lights flashing... hmmm... lemme see.... maybe coz I illegaly passed him and had no licence plate on the bike... Now I'm getting a bit scared, but hey... I got a ninja and he has a... police cage... Guess who was faster. Anyway, I arrive at my friends place, ask him to open the garage and I put the bike out of sight. As I was parking the bike his phone rang... it was a friend of his telling him franticly he just saw his ex bike being chased by police on the highway.. yeah... no ****.
OK, now the XS stuff.... just bought the bike in pieces.. put it back together, bike started at the first push of the button, but I could ride a couple of feet and the bike died or worked at the tickover with WOT only. Got a new TCI, did all sorts of stuff to the carbs till I found out the cam timing was off... I adjusted the thing by kawasaki marks, but XS has the arrows and dots thingie... just bent 2 valves. Replaced the valves, put the bike back together, did bout 1500 miles, when a friend shows up at my house. I wanted to show him the difference between the engine sizes of kawa 600 and yamaha 1100. So I take the old kawasaki head gasket off the shelf, the old yamaha head gasket and the new yamaha head gasket.... hmmm... what was off there. Hmm... why is the new gasket doing on the shelf... and I did 1500 miles... and no gasket in the engine. Eh well, pulled the head again to install the gasket. Dunno why I bothered...

LP

[walter1970]

MRO you killed me with that one,You are to cruel,,lol

[79XS11F]

Well ... I pulled into a camp ground at about 9 PM on the first long day of a 2 week, 2 up trip to Newfoundland. The bike was LOADED with tent, etc etc. Tank bag, saddle bags, back rack you name it. Anyway I was pretty tired after 14 hours on the road in the RAIN. So .. I pull up to the camp site and get off the bike ... WITHOUT putting down the side stand!!! All I heard was a thud and the wife using profanity LOL LOL. That is about the dumbest thing I have mustered over the years that relates to biking.
Rob

[dmac82]

Been riding since '71 and have no MC mechanical stories, I guess I am more relaxed and more careful when working on two wheels as opposed to four.

Regarding four wheels, worst I can remember is having my face directly over a four-barrel carb on a 69 El Camino v8 while my buddy was cranking it over. Backfire blinded me for a while and took all facial hair and half the hair on my head. Buddy thought it was the funnist thing he ever saw, just like a cartoon he said.

Back to MCs, me and my Husky ended up in a tree one time, took ropes to pull it out. Same buddy thought that was pretty funny too. Goofing off in Saddleback park in SoCal went flying over a hill and the tree was on the down side. I was wearing full moto-gear so I was unhurt, the Husky busted both levers and the clutch cable, rode the rest of the day like that, just a lot slower!

[saddle up]

This is not motorcycle related but it has to be in the top five of all time.
Just getting out of the Marine Corps, I went to visit my sister in St. Pete Fl. I still had my 80G, and had a 77 Sportster that had been stored in her garage for the last couple of years. But I got an urge to buy a car. St. Pete has to be one of the biggest retirement places on the East Coast, or it used to be. There are cars galore for cheap. Well it so happened that my brother in law know an old man down the street that had an older Cadillac in primo shape. It had the wonder bar on the radio. Had the biggest motor you could get...etc. He wanted 600 bucks for it, the only thing wrong with it was the electrical fuel pump that was mounted on the gas tank. Me being the mechanic that I thought I was, said no problem I'll just put in a mechanical fuel pump. So I swapped out the pumps and the car purred like a kitten. I was happy and on top of the world. Went down to the gas station and filled her up and went cruising. I probably was driving for about 25 minutes, when some one came along side of me beeping their horn. I rolled down the window and the guy was screaming, " your cars on fire!!". I looked in the rear view mirror and saw a thin stream of fire about 50 feet long following me! It was just like that movie "Back to the future".
Of course I about s%&* my britches, pulled over and ran across the street expecting it to blow up. Of course it didn't it just burnt slowly. The fire department put out the fire, but the car was a wreck and I donated it to a sledge hammer fund raiser of some sort at Sky Way Jack's, a popular bar at the time.
I was in such a hurry that I never plugged the hole where the electrical fuel pump used to be. Talk about the highs and the lows in a half an hour! Talk about a dumb as$

[olebiker]

I can add to the resurrected thread. A number of years ago I had a pretty well setup garage and did a bit of work on other peoples bikes as well as my own. One day my buddy showed up with his Triumph Silver Jubilee. Really spiffy lookin bike. Unfortunately he too had heard about the tinfoil in the fuse holder trick. Only metal and a couple of drops of melted plastic left on the main wiring harness . So I rewire it with new harness and not thinking hook up the battery. Only had to wrap a bit of wire after forgetting that the Brits batteries are backwards. I think the neighbors might have learned some new words that time.

[fredintoon]

When I first got my XS11SG it was in pretty rough shape. It did have good aftermarket coils but they were held on with a part cut from a tin can and one 3/16" stove bolt & square nut. Replaced that mess with sensible stuff. Some months later, the bike develops a no tach & no charge condition. Replace whatever you call a stationary rotor, then the stator, then the reg/rectifier, all to no avail. The only suspect left is the wiring harness. Get a replacement harness. Part way through removing the old harness (that the PO had cut open here and there for reasons unknown) I find the red wire that Mr. Stupid had trapped under the fancy new coil holder. It had taken a couple of months for the insulation to extrude off the wire so it could ground itself to the frame! De-trap the wire & re-tape the harness and there's 14.2 Volts back again and the bike has a complete set of spare charging system parts as a bonus. Sometimes stupidity can work for you.
Now, a classic Britbike tale from the 1950s:-
Seems someone took his BSA Gold Star to the local garage & told the pump jockey to fill the tank and add a 1/4-pint of Castrol Grand Prix to the engine.
Was just too late to stop young spottyface from pouring the oil into the Amal Carb's polished aluminum intake venturi.

[xs11jack]

Too many gaskets

Bought my first XS11 off the showroom floor in LA. Rode it a month to put miles on before trip to New Orleans for Christmas.
During the brake-in peroid managed to put two oil filter cover O-rings on, fire up bike and watch what looked like 8 gallons of oil run out over the garage floor. The next oil change I managed to round the oil filter cover bolt off. spent a full day laying on dirty garage floor carfully grinding the blot head off with a dremel tool. Another kill switch story. Coming home from visiting friends at two in the morning, pulled into a picnic area to drain certain resovoir. No moon out, didn't see the parking area newly paved and still soft. Got off and went to grassy area and heard my wife scream! She had stayed on the bike and over it went. Ran back, she was ok, went back to grassy area. When I came back picked up bike, but it wouldn't start. 60 miles to home. No lite to use for trouble shooting. After 30 minutes of the braille method of troubleshooting, my lovely wife says, "What's this switch, dear?" Of couse, it was the kill switch-OFF.
There are others but thats enough humble for one day!!!

[DJinNH]

I mentioned this in another thread but I don't want to miss out on my chance to win that beautiful dumb-$#@% trophy.

My bike was starting up just fine but my headlight wasn't coming on. I went through everything electrical not knowing what half of the items did. I took some things apart to look for anything loose inside, then carefully, or so I thought, put them back the way I found them.

Finally, I figured I would take the bike for the first ride ever since I bought it and restored it over the winter. I turned the key, pushed the start button and the starter went and went but no engine start. I pulled the plug wire and put the spark plug against the engine...no spark. What the hell? Over and over I tried things and even ran over to Maine where I had been restoring the bike to get a spare set of coils. After replacing them, still nothing. Some of you as far away as New York might have heard a faint cry of profanity that day if the winds were right.

Finally, a buddy asked me what I had done since the bike was running. He suggested I go through everything I messed with before.

It took a while and this whole nightmare lasted two full days. Anyway, I finally found it. After going through the tip over kill switch, I mounted it back upside-down. Now I realize it says "top" on the rubber holder but I had taken that off when I took the box apart. What a freakin goofball! I mounted it correctly and hit the start button...boom, go figure, it fired right up. DUH! At least I will never forget what that little box does again.

Don

[psycoreefer]

Last weekend SWMBO and I went for a ride on the xs. Stopped to get a drink at a gas station and I still don't exactly trust my new float valves so I shut the gas off.
Come out, hop on the bike, drive out the lot down the street and what happens, the bike quits just as I take off in the middle of an intersection. I'm sitting there, traffic is stopped and I'm cranking and swearing, then I realize that I never turned the gas back on. DOH! I'll be hearing about that one for a while.